This exhibition in Delhi turns the spotlight on traditional Phulkari work

The word ‘Phulkari’ literally translates to ‘floral work’. Traditionally executed on hand-spun cotton or khaddar, Phulkari embroidery is built from darn stitches that form colourful geometrical motifs — cotton bolls (fruit of the cotton plant), birds, flowering vines, wheat stalks, vegetables, and Punjab’s everyday agrarian life — all woven in bright silk floss. The craft dates back to undivided Punjab, spanning present-day Punjab and Haryana.

This Delhi exhibition displays pre-partition Phulkari work

At Latitude 28 in Delhi’s Defence Colony, gallery director Bhavna Kakar is presenting a collection of over 40 rare pre-Partition Phulkaris and Baghs — the latter a ceremonial form of Phulkari made primarily for weddings and rituals. Unlike Phulkaris, Baghs (meaning “garden”) are heavily embroidered, with thick borders and densely packed geometric patterns that cover the entire surface of the fabric.

Titled ‘ਸੂਤ ਤੇ ਸਾਹ (Sut te Saah): Stories Woven in Phulkari’, the exhibition is curated by oral historian and curator Shreya Sharma and brings together works from the family collection of Brigadier S.K. and Shyama Kakar, Kakar’s parents. Most of the Phulkaris on view form part of her family inheritance, passed down from her grandmother Raj Rani Bhasin, to her mother Shyama, and then to her.

“I’ve lived with Phulkaris all my life,” she tells. “My family came from Gujranwala and Gujarat’s Mandi Bahauddin (both once a part of undivided Punjab, now in Pakistan). These were never objects meant to be shown or sold. They were a part of our home.”

Embroidering the life cycle 

Traditionally, Phulkari is associated with certain events and festivals. A Chope would be started by a grandmother on the day a girl was born and worked on slowly for years, to be gifted when the child married. On the other hand, a Vari-da-Bagh is prepared for a future daughter-in-law, with the embroidery begun by the grandmother at the birth of a male child.

Kakar recalls growing up with these clothes as part of everyday life. Her mother, married to an army officer, Brigadier S.K., was frequently on the move. Phulkaris were cut and repurposed into cushions, draped over army trunks, or turned into seating. “Phulkari was a lived, everyday textile,” she adds. 

The exhibition features three conceptual sections — ‘ਸੰਕ੍ਰਮਣ (Sankraman / Transition)’ focusing on moments of passage: birth, marriage, transformation; ਵਿਸ਼ਵਾਸ ਅਤੇ ਕਥਾ (Vishvaas ate Katha / Belief and Narrative) depicting themes of faith and folklore; and lastly, ‘ਰਿਹਾਇਸ਼ (Rihaish / Dwelling and Everyday Life)’, with a depiction of an everyday life with objects like belan (rolling pin), chillies, flowers, and wheat stalks intricately stitched across the large piece of fabric. 

After Chope, Vari-da-Bagh, Darshan Dwar Phulkari — which portrays gateways (dwar) to the divine (darshan; pilgrimage), usually donated to temples and gurudwaras  — and other forms, the exhibition eventually concludes with Thirma. With its restrained white ground and red threadwork, Thirma was worn by older women and widows, and was associated with purity, reflection, and the quieter endings of life. “Life ends with Thirma,” Kakar says. “So the exhibition closes there.”

Phulkari across Punjab

The collection spans the Majha, Doaba, and Malwa regions of Punjab, hinting at subtle regional differences in colour, material, and motif. 

According to Kakar, Phulkaris from the pre-Partition Malwa region—covering districts such as Patiala, Ludhiana, Bathinda, and Sangrur—are often pictorial and figurative, depicting humans, animals, plants, and scenes from everyday life, stitched onto hand-spun cotton using vividly coloured threads in red, yellow, pink, and green. By contrast, pieces from Majha—encompassing cities like Lahore, Kasur, Amritsar, and Gujranwala—and Doaba, including districts such as Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, and Nawanshahr, tend towards softer palettes of whites, golds, and browns, reflecting access to Afghan and Iranian trade routes that supplied pat, the untwisted silk floss now no longer available. 

Threads of Partition

Kakar says that Phulkari is as much a repository of memory as it is of loss, bearing the imprint of Partition’s trauma.

Speaking of a similar incident, curator Sharma recalls her encounters with Partition survivors while researching the subject. “One survivor told me she migrated with nothing except two Phulkaris — they were the only objects she took across the border, holding memory and home,” she remarks. Sharma adds that the woman, like many others, stopped making Pachranga Phulkari after Partition. Believed to represent the five rivers of Punjab, Pachranga became too painful to continue once the land was divided and the rivers were no longer whole. What had previously been a celebration of place and belonging, Sharma notes, became a reminder of loss. 

Speaking about the practice of Phulkari, Kakar points out that the traditional embroidery begins from the reverse side, with motifs gradually appearing through stitches on the front. Today, machine embroidery and simplified patterns dominate the market, while the original technique and traditions it carried along, has nearly vanished. “Recognition and awareness are crucial to preservation,” she adds. “Commercialised Phulkari has helped make the craft visible, but a true revival has yet to happen.”

This article is written by Pankil Jhajhria